Text Size

Also in play Tuesday were two GOP-held open seats that are regarded as secure for the party. In the western Michigan-based 2nd District, former state Rep. Bill Huizenga held a razor-thin lead over former professional football player Jay Riemersma with 97 percent of precincts reporting. Riemersma had been viewed as the frontrunner, promoting his background as the Midwest director for the Family Research Council to tap the district’s socially conservative base.

State Rep. Justin Amash topped state Sen. Bill Hardiman in the race for the open 3rd District seat of retiring Republican Rep. Vern Ehlers. Amash, who ran as a fiscal conservative, won with the backing of the anti-tax Club for Growth, which bundled campaign cash and ran TV ads in support of his candidacy.

In Missouri, Blunt easily outdistanced a crowded field that included a tea party-powered challenger to win the Republican Senate primary.

Blunt won 71 percent of the vote against state Sen. Chuck Purgason, who captured just 13 percent. Purgason tried to galvanize tea party support in his longshot challenge against the former House minority whip. Purgason had targeted Blunt’s long tenure in Congress and his vote for the Wall Street TARP bailout.

With 97 percent of precincts reporting, 10 other candidates lagged in single digits.

In the general election, Blunt will face Missouri's Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, who also won her Democratic primary easily. Polls show a tight battle between the two longtime state pols in the race to succeed Republican Kit Bond who is retiring from the U.S. Senate.

Blunt all but ignored Purgason throughout the campaign, focusing his criticism on Carnahan as a candidate who would "rubberstamp" President Obama's agenda.

The general election sets up a battle of two dynastic Missouri politicians. Carnahan's brother is a St. Louis congressman, her father was a popular two-term governor and her mother served in the Senate. Blunt is a nine-term congressman whose son governed the state for one controversial term after passing on a reelection bid. Blunt is thought to be a slight favorite heading into the fall because the head wind that national Democrats are facing may even be a bit stronger in Missouri, where the president's approval rating has slumped into the mid-30s.

In the GOP primary to replace Blunt, auctioneer Billy Long sent a resounding message to the southwest Missouri political establishment by defeating two state senators and a well-known Greene County prosecutor in the 7th District.

Long, a plainspoken political neophyte who often sported a cowboy hat, ran on an anti-establishment message, swore off earmarks and took a term limit pledge — all while trouncing his opponents in fundraising. His yard signs read "Fed Up?" and he won the backing of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman, who has a reputation as a maverick Republican who irks party leaders.

Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a key provision of President Barack Obama's health care law, sending a clear message of discontent to Washington and Democrats less than 100 days before the midterm elections. fox news JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a key provision of President Barack Obama's health care law, sending a clear message of discontent to Washington and Democrats less than 100 days before the midterm elections.

With about 90 percent of the vote counted late Tuesday, nearly three-quarters of voters backed a ballot measure, Proposition C, that would prohibit the government from requiring people to have health insurance or from penalizing them for not having it.

The Missouri law would conflict with a federal requirement that most people have health insurance or face penalties starting in 2014.

Tuesday's vote was seen as largely symbolic because federal law generally trumps state law. But it was also seen as a sign of growing voter disillusionment with federal policies and a show of strength by conservatives and the tea party movement.

"To us, it symbolized everything," said Annette Read, a tea party participant from suburban St. Louis who quit her online retail job to lead a yearlong campaign for the Missouri ballot measure. "The entire frustration in the country ... how our government has misspent, how they haven't listened to the people, this measure in general encompassed all of that."

Missouri's ballot also featured primaries for U.S. Senate, Congress and numerous state legislative seats. But at many polling places, voters said they were most passionate about the health insurance referendum.

"I believe that the general public has been duped about the benefits of the health care proposal," said Mike Sampson of Jefferson City, an independent emergency management contractor, who voted for the proposition. "My guess is federal law will in fact supersede state law, but we need to send a message to the folks in Washington, D.C., that people in the hinterlands are not happy."

Legislatures in Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana and Virginia have passed similar statutes, and voters in Arizona and Oklahoma will vote on such measures as state constitutional amendments in November. But Missouri was the first state to challenge aspects of the federal law in a referendum.

The intent of the federal requirement is to broaden the pool of healthy people covered by insurers, thus holding down premiums that otherwise would rise because of separate provisions prohibiting insurers from denying coverage to people with poor health or pre-existing conditions.

But the insurance requirement has been one of the most contentious parts of the new federal law. Public officials in well over a dozen states, including Missouri, have filed lawsuits claiming Congress overstepped its constitutional authority by requiring citizens to buy health insurance.

Federal courts are expected to weigh in well before the insurance requirement takes effect about whether the federal health care overhaul is constitutional.

Good. The Democrats need to weed out their weaker candidates in order to win November. So long as the Republicans keep kowtowing to the Tea Party nutcases, they'll sabotage themselves. I'd rather see a good Democratic candidate run.

28. Monkeys Get High for Science (Winston-Salem, NC) - $144,541 Researchers at Wake Forest University think that, in at least one case, it is good to monkey around with your stimulus dollars. The Department of Health and Human Services has sent $144,541 to the Winston-Salem college to see how monkeys react under the influence of cocaine. The project, titled “Effect of Cocaine Self-Administration on Metabotropic Glutamate Systems,” would have the monkeys self-administer the drugs while researchers monitor and study their glutamate levels. When asked how studying drug-crazed primates would improve the national economy, a Wake Forest University Medical School Spokesman said, “It’s actually the continuation of a job that might not still be there if it hadn’t been for the stimulus funding. And it’s a good job.” He added, “It’s also very worthwhile research.”

Now can anyone in thier right mind believe the spending of this money was to stimulate the economy? Could it be a payback to help cover fact he was not born on american soil? A lot of little babies going hungry could have been fed on this money instead having high monkeys.

787 BILLION DOLLARS WHAT A WASTE OR A HELLOF A PAYBACK AT TAXPAYERS EXPENSE ?

Note to Politico: The real story is the party turnout. Ouch! That said, nice to see Kilpatrick being shown the door. Whether democrat or republican, the next rep will likely serve the constituents much better.

He spent freely from his own pockets in the primary campaign, which pitted him against four other Republicans, including state Attorney General Mike Cox and Rep. Pete Hoekstra.

With 90 percent of precincts reporting, Snyder had 36 percent of the vote to Hoekstra’s 27 percent and Cox’s 23 percent.

TeamPOLITICO: Aug. 4, 2010 - 12:11 AM EST

In the state’s marquee race, the GOP Senate primary, Rep. Jerry Moran defeated Rep. Todd Tiahrt by 49 percent to 45 percent with 90 percent of precincts reporting. Though he lagged behind Moran in polls, Tiahrt had endorsements from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Karl Rove, while Moran trumpeted backing from Arizona Sen. John McCain and South Dakota Sen. John Thune.

I am thrilled that two Republican 'tin-foil-hat' nutballs LOST their bids to hurt our government, economy and/or culture further. Hoekstra is (was) a political opportunist with no real conviction, other than watching out for himself and attacking others for his own failings as a politician and a human being. Tiahrt is (was) a right-wing, conservative, ultra-religious zealot who deserves to go back to Kansas and raise sheep, based on his uselessness in Congress and his wacky statements!

“Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." - P.J. O'Rourke

The Missouri law would conflict with a federal requirement that most people have health insurance or face penalties starting in 2014.

Tuesday's vote was seen as largely symbolic because federal law generally trumps state law. But it was also seen as a sign of growing voter disillusionment with federal policies and a show of strength by conservatives and the tea party movement.